James Cameron, Peter Jackson, more protest video-on-demand in open letter
4 hours ago | EW.com - Inside Movies Some of Hollywood’s biggest names have gathered to protest studios’ agreement with DirecTV to release films as soon as eight weeks after a their theatrical releases. (The current release window stands at four months.) On Wednesday, the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) released an open letter criticizing studios for See more »
Ok, now here's my open letter to James Cameron, Peter Jackson, and more:
"Shut up."
Apparently DirecTV made a deal with the movie studios to start offering new release films "on demand" after they've been in the theater for eight weeks, and Hollywood is going nuts because they are afraid this will cut into their revenue. When was the last time you went to see a movie that had been in the theater for eight weeks? Unless it was at a dollar theater, I've probably never done that, unless I was completely boring, completely desperate, and had absolutely nothing else to do and I was trapped at a cinema. Eight weeks is a pretty long time in terms of movie going, and almost an entire season with dozens and dozens of movies can open and close within that time-span.
Long story short, if your film doesn't make a profit in eight weeks, it never will in the theater, so releasing it on demand at the exorbitant price of $30 (which nobody will pay anyway, making their complaints all the more unreasonable) should be taken as a gift to those Hollywood filmmakers, not some kind of threat.
Or, if you really want people to keep going to the cinemas, make better movies. But that would be crazy, right?
